High-Arousal Emotions That Make Your Content Contagious

What’s awe? It’s quite simply something remarkable. Something that people can’t resist commenting on. This can be in the form of a story, a real-life event, or it can also be something as simple as an exhaustive list of 101 links to helpful resources.

People hate anxiety. What creates anxiety? If you’re writing content that talks about potentially losing out on something, that’s one way. People hate losing things they have.

See the #1 Conversion Killer in Web Design as an example.

4. Fear

Fear is one of the biggest motivators on Earth. It targets the reptilian brain, and people can’t resist but take action when motivated with fear.

What’s an example of fear? You can make people worry that they’re making mistakes they’re unaware of. You can also target the fear of loss (aka limited quantities).

5. Joy

What makes people happy? There’s loads of things. It can be something funny, inspiring, or anything that’s positively uplifting.

One way to target the “joy” emotion is by telling a story from life that you know people can connect with. It really takes advantage of nostalgia and bonds with people who read it.

6. Lust

People can lust for more than just sex. They can lust after money, results, women, men, or anything like that. To target that, you simply need to tantalize readers with potential results.

7. Surprise

What surprises people? Anything that goes against their expectations. You can challenge assumptions, and prove them wrong. You can share new ways of doing things, or share results of personal tests.

The Bottom Line

When you’re looking to get traffic for your business website, make sure you show people how to implement the advice you give them. Take the time to show them an example, and give them next action steps.

And finally, don’t just write content for the sake of writing content. Always target a high-arousal emotion so you know your content will get shared.